[Genghiz Cohen]

Originally Posted by deconduo

Coming soon: Boards.ie tech reviews

A wise man once said not to trust site reviews...

[Dublin_Gunner]

Originally Posted by Genghiz Cohen

A wise man once said not to trust site reviews...

yes, it's a much more viable and reliable option to just buy every new piece of hardware and test it yourself...

Most reviews give the performance of hardware at exactly the same levels. There is no reason to not trust any reputable site's reviews.

I personally always look on Guru3D.com, Anandtech.com and Bit-Tech.net

3 very reputable sites.

[Monotype]

Originally Posted by Tea_Bag

NTMK has 2 6970s, and headshot has 2 gtx570s. I'd donate a PC as a test bench, and throw in my 6990 to show what real power consumption is all about . this could actually work.

sure I've been looking into getting a power meter for a while now.

Hmm... I could imagine that...
-Hey, thanks for the loan of the cards
-You're welcome... hey what are these blackened scorch marks on the cards?!
-Well, we had to test the absolute power limits when we really pushed the card... OKbyenow!

Originally Posted by Dublin_Gunner

Most reviews give the performance of hardware at exactly the same levels. There is no reason to not trust any reputable site's reviews.

I personally always look on Guru3D.com, Anandtech.com and Bit-Tech.net

3 very reputable sites.

There's very good reason not to trust any individual site. Any one could get a good/bad card and test platforms/situations can vary a lot. A review can skew results easily by picking certain games, resolutions or various settings to favour a card. Most sites will get the sample cards for testing for free/loan and even if they don't have a direct affiliation with a company, they will be aware that if they slaughter a product, they won't get repeat samples. It happens quite a bit in the games review world, apparently.

Look at the three sites you mentioned. The GTX 570.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4239/36072.png
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-570-review/8
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/201...1-3gb-review/9

Anandtech: 446W
Guru3d: 396W
Bit-tech: 330W

That's a range of 116W.
Anandtech used furmark which would be good for finding an absolute maximum. Bit-tech and Guru3d believe that furmark doesn't reflect the true draw of a card for games - which is fair enough but why not have both for a better idea? There's still a lot of variance as they are on different systems (although guru3d tries to factor that in). Nevertheless, all three sites are measuring the power consumption at the wall and so there's a lot more factors to think about than the card itself.


Edit: I'm not saying not to trust any of those sites, I'm just saying not to trust any individual review + it's hard to get get a good estimate of graphics power consumption.

[Dublin_Gunner]

Originally Posted by Monotype

Edit: I'm not saying not to trust any of those sites, I'm just saying not to trust any individual review + it's hard to get get a good estimate of graphics power consumption.

Which is pretty much what I was getting at too.

There seemed to be suggestions not to trust ANY site, whereas I was trying to suggest looking at a few reputable sites to form an opinion.

Relative performance of the cards would be the same across any reputable site mind you, even if the actual performance figures differ.

[Monotype]

So far, techpowerup is the only one that I've seen with power consumption for cards done properly, i.e., actual card measurement as well as including both peak+maximum draw.

If anyone knows a site which can back up their results, it would be very much appreciated.

[deconduo]

Originally Posted by Monotype

So far, techpowerup is the only one that I've seen with power consumption for cards done properly, i.e., actual card measurement as well as including both peak+maximum draw.

If anyone knows a site which can back up their results, it would be very much appreciated.

Xbitlabs do it as well with some reviews, but not all. For example:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/gra...u_4.html#sect0

Whats nice is that they give the current draw through each part, as well testing Idle/Video/Game/Stress test.

[Genghiz Cohen]

Originally Posted by Dublin_Gunner

yes, it's a much more viable and reliable option to just buy every new piece of hardware and test it yourself...

Most reviews give the performance of hardware at exactly the same levels. There is no reason to not trust any reputable site's reviews..

[Monotype]

Originally Posted by deconduo

Xbitlabs do it as well with some reviews, but not all. For example:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/gra...u_4.html#sect0

Whats nice is that they give the current draw through each part, as well testing Idle/Video/Game/Stress test.

Yeah, I saw one of those a while back but had forgotten. That's interesting the way it's broken up.

[teflonbilly]

Back on the topic of better features, I do have to wonder, and since I dont have them, can a 6970 really push 3 1920x1200 monitors in AAA titles with maxed features on its own? I run 2 gtx 580s with 3 gigs of ram each and that is enough. Sure it pulls a lot of power, but I ahve a 1250w PSU so no worries there, but I can't imagine one 6970 or even a 580 being strong enough to do that. the new 7970 would be a different story for sure.

I am hoping to see some interesting numbers whent he Keplar products show up. Would be fun to see how the prices drop. I think we will see a dramatic drop from AMD since they are very high currently.

[srsly78]

Single 6970 can push 7680x1600 in less demanding games like Skyrim. Can't run stuff like BF3 or other games at decent framerate with 3 monitors tho. Also have to turn off AA at silly resolutions.

[Serephucus]

Originally Posted by teflonbilly

Back on the topic of better features, I do have to wonder, and since I dont have them, can a 6970 really push 3 1920x1200 monitors in AAA titles with maxed features on its own? I run 2 gtx 580s with 3 gigs of ram each and that is enough. Sure it pulls a lot of power, but I ahve a 1250w PSU so no worries there, but I can't imagine one 6970 or even a 580 being strong enough to do that. the new 7970 would be a different story for sure.

I am hoping to see some interesting numbers whent he Keplar products show up. Would be fun to see how the prices drop. I think we will see a dramatic drop from AMD since they are very high currently.

1250W is overkill. You could just about manage four off that. Anyway, I don't think a 6970 can. I remember looking it up a while back, and most new titles were getting 30FPS average, and that was with some AA as well.

I doubt AMD's prices will drop. Initial reports are that the 690 will have an RRP of $999. The 680 is looking like $650, so that's at least €550, potentially €600. Even if the 680 murders the 7970, AMD don't necessarily have to drop their prices much, if any, to remain competitive.

Now, this is all going off very early rumours, so it could all be bollocks, who knows...

[nesf]

Originally Posted by teflonbilly

Back on the topic of better features, I do have to wonder, and since I dont have them, can a 6970 really push 3 1920x1200 monitors in AAA titles with maxed features on its own? I run 2 gtx 580s with 3 gigs of ram each and that is enough. Sure it pulls a lot of power, but I ahve a 1250w PSU so no worries there, but I can't imagine one 6970 or even a 580 being strong enough to do that. the new 7970 would be a different story for sure.

At that resolution you're really not going to be worried about value and really only worried about performance, in that case the Nvidia offerings make a lot of sense.

[teflonbilly]

1250 is not overkill. Without knowing hte rest of the specs of my pc its hard to call. But in my case its true that i dont pull nearly that power. But my PSU never runs its fan. its silent. It stays in its most efficient area at around 50-60% output, so I get more efficiency,a nd no noise for only a little more cost when I purchased. My entire computer runs at 23db when measured from one meter away and everythign running at max durnig stress testing.

I do think prices will drop though. its pretty rare to see a md or nvidia hold their pricing so high when both companies are competing at the high end. Currently Amd is the only game in town with their new releases, but when Nvidia comes along both companies will want to secure more sales and I can't see the prices staying high.

[Serephucus]

Originally Posted by teflonbilly

1250 is not overkill. Without knowing hte rest of the specs of my pc its hard to call. But in my case its true that i dont pull nearly that power. It stays in its most efficient area at around 50-60% output, so I get more efficiency,a nd no noise for only a little more cost when I purchased.

Yes it is. Even if you have a 2600K, overclocked to 5.0GHz, you'd still be using less power than my CPU, by anywhere up to 100W. Even if you have six hard drives, odds are you're using less power than my older, less efficient hard drives. I've run my system, with SLI 580s, at 970 core each, from an 850W unit. I could run my current system from an efficient 550W unit quite easily.

And even if you get the highest efficiency at 70% load or whatever, we're talking at most about 3%. Unless you're gaming twelve hours a day, or folding or something, your computer is going to spend most of its time drawing about 150W, meaning you'll end up paying for that extra wattage through your ESB bill, probably about an extra €5 a bill, if not more, which completely blows your argument out of the water.

I'm just saying this because it's something I learned myself quite recently. I was running a single 580 - and for a while SLI 580s - from a 1200W unit, and it just wasn't needed.

[Tea_Bag]

Originally Posted by Serephucus

Yes it is. Even if you have a 2600K, overclocked to 5.0GHz, you'd still be using less power than my CPU, by anywhere up to 100W. Even if you have six hard drives, odds are you're using less power than my older, less efficient hard drives. I've run my system, with SLI 580s, at 970 core each, from an 850W unit. I could run my current system from an efficient 550W unit quite easily.

And even if you get the highest efficiency at 70% load or whatever, we're talking at most about 3%. Unless you're gaming twelve hours a day, or folding or something, your computer is going to spend most of its time drawing about 150W, meaning you'll end up paying for that extra wattage through your ESB bill, probably about an extra €5 a bill, if not more, which completely blows your argument out of the water.

I'm just saying this because it's something I learned myself quite recently. I was running a single 580 - and for a while SLI 580s - from a 1200W unit, and it just wasn't needed.

guilty...

I'm running a 6990 (stock) + 2500K (4.6Ghz), single HDD and SSD off an.... antech true power 1200W

wasn't by choice, but it was either that, or throw it into my server PC, which draws like 50W under Max load.

was gonna sell it on, but i figured my next upgrades will be monitor/water/6990CF (maybe not in that order, and i don't have €1400 I'd need for it all, but one can dream)

anyway, no point in selling now and have to rebuy a €200 PSU later to run 6990CF.
its also a decent psu that is efficient enough at my loads, and if I'm not gaming, the PC is off.